Meet The Team
Just 15 friends working on a robot.
Darren
President
Darren
Darren Wang is a junior at John Jay Senior High School. This is his third year on the robotics team. He plans to go to college for biology and mechanical engineering after high school. He enjoys cooking, reading, and sleeping in his spare time. Robotics is his only scholastic club, but outside of robotics, he attends a fiddle group, is part of a fencing team, and attends a research mentorship program. He joined the robotics team because he wants to help create a fun and welcoming place for people who enjoy tinkering and brainstorming. He aims to make everyone in the team feel like they belong and lead the team to success in the competition season.
Ashish
Vice President & Documentation Leader
Ashish
Ashish is a senior at John Jay High School. He enjoys robotics and working through problems with his FTC team. Ashish plans to go to college after high school, and is interested in computer science and mechanical engineering. Physics is the most interesting subject to him. This is his fourth year on the team, and he has been Vice President both in 10th and 11th grade. He works on different parts of the team as an officer: he helps out in CAD, code, and build. Outside of school he enjoys playing video games such as Apex Legends and Battlefront. He is part of the Math Honor Society, Symphonic Band, and Science Olympiad. He loves working with the team to solve problems through engineering and programming. He also serves the team as a driver during competitions and is the current head of the drive team.
Silvia
Treasurer
Silvia
Silvia is a sophomore at John Jay High School. This is her second year in the Robotics Club. Her plans after High School are to go to college and study in the medical or engineering field. In school, she enjoys math and participating in clubs like the Science Olympiad, Math Team, and Future Business Leaders of America. She is also in the Math Honors Society. She is interested in learning and trying new things out. In her free time, she swims competitively, plays the cello, and enjoys exploring the world. She decided to join FTC because she enjoys building things, soldering, and sharing her ideas with others. In robotics, she hopes to learn CAD, make new friends, achieve better leadership skills, and build a robot. Additionally, Silvia helps out with the Engineering Notebook and is the Treasurer of the club.
Mili
Secretary & Outreach Coordinator
Mili
Mili is a junior at John Jay High School. This her second year in Robotics. She also is a part of the Science Olympiad, Math Honor Society, and French Honor Society. She plans to attend college after high school. Mili enjoys reading books. She is co-leader of the Engineering Notebook team and is outreach manager. She arranged the Virtual Summer Workshops and the virtual tutoring for middle school students.
Mr. Amodio
Mentor & Coach
Mr. Amodio
James Amodio teaches Regents Physics at John Jay High School. While this is only his 3rd year in the Wappingers Central School District, he has been an FTC Coach at Blind Brook High School as well as Roosevelt and Riverside High Schools in Yonkers, NY. He has also been coaching several Jr. FLL teams in the Arlington School District for the past 3 years. Mr. Amodio is very excited to be working with such a dedicated team as the Jaybots!
Anish
Programming Leader & Website Manager
Anish
Anish is a sophomore at John Jay High School. It is his second year in the Robotics club. He plans on going to college after high school in the field of computer science. He enjoys math & science in school and is part of other clubs like the Math Honor Society. In his free time, he enjoys playing tennis & working on other programming projects. He hopes to learn and work with the new, growing team. Anish is the website manager and the Programming Leader. As programming leader, he trains and manages an evergrowing team of new recruits, teaching them valuable skills like Java, Version Control and more!
Matt
Lead Builder
Matt
Matthew Laverde is a sophomore at John Jay High School. He has no experience regarding robotics other than this team, although he has learned a lot. After graduating high school, Matthew plans to go to Dutchess Community College before going to another college (He doesn't know which) to pursue a career in engineering. Other than robotics, in school Matthew enjoys computer game design, global history, design and drawing for production, and phys ed. Outside of school, some games he plays Minecraft, Rocket League, Star Wars Squadrons, and Star Wars Battlefront. Some of his hobbies are astronomy and designing things in CAD. In 8th grade, he joined the chess club and went undefeated (though there were many stalemates) for most of the year. Matthew made the National Junior Honors Society (NJHS) in 8th grade, as well. He joined his school robotics team, now named the Jaybots, this year to put some of his programming skills to good use, although he never ended up programming, and instead worked on branding, such as a name and logo for the team, and then became a hard-working member of the build team. He is now the build team leader. When he has free time during meetings and workdays for the team, Matthew helps out in some other parts of the team, such as design. Since our team can no longer meet in person, he works primarily on designing the team's robot on Onshape.
Arnav
CAD Leader
Arnav
Arnav is a sophomore at John Jay High School. He was a part of an FLL team in middle school. His main job was building, coding, and driving. He plans to go into the medical field from a reputable school. He enjoys Biology and Math. He enjoys running and singing. He is a part of the Cross Country and Track team. He also does other clubs like Science Olympiad and Math Team. He has a passion for photography. He also learns Hindustani (Indian) Classical music. He joined FTC because he loves robotics and being part of a team. He hopes to have fun while helping build a cool robot. He helps in building the bot, CAD and the Engineering Notebook. Additionally, he also makes videos and helps with photography.
Anaya
Builder, Photographer
Anaya
Anaya is a Sophomore at John Jay Senior High School. This is her second year in the Robotics club. She wants to attend college and go into the field of medicine after high school. She enjoys playing the Violin and playing soccer and tennis. She enjoys both math and science. She takes part in the Math Honor Society as well as the tennis team. She helps with build and has self-given herself the team photographer role. She also helps out with the video production as well.
Dillon
Builder
Dillon
Dillon Anthony is a sophomore at John Jay High School. This is his second year on a robotics team. He plans to go to college for computer science or engineering. In his free time, he participates in boy scouts and likes to bike and play video games. Dillon is also in the sound crew for proscenium at John Jay. Dillon joined the FTC team because he wants to gain experience with building in general and wants to learn how to code. Dillon's team job is to help with building the robot and make adjustments.
Eve
Member
Eve
Eve is a junior in John Jay high school. This is their first year as part of the robotics team, however they did attend some meeting towards the end of last year. Eve enjoys art and fencing as well as reading. They plan on going to college for Art and Design after high school.
Kevin
Member
Kevin
Kevin Thomas is a sophomore at John Jay High School. He did the Science Olympiad last year. This year, he is in the Interact Club and FTC. This is his first year in FTC. In the future, Kevin is planning to go into either Aerospace or Aeronautical engineering and go to Rutgers University. During his free time, Kevin enjoys playing video games on his Xbox, reading, and building things. Kevin joined FTC since he likes building and robots. Kevin does building in the Robotics team and hopes to do more in the upcoming years.
Mark
Member
Mark
Mark is a sophomore at John Jay Highschool. This is his second year in the robotics club. He plans to pursue a career in engineering at college in the future. Mark likes to play sports like tennis and fencing. He enjoys playing videogames, running with his dog, biking, and playing the trumpet and piano. He is also in the Math Honor Society and Symphonic Band. Mark is happy to be a part of the Robotics Team and can't wait to see the Jaybots win the competition this year!
Robert
Programmer
Robert
Robert Zhu is a Senior at John Jay High School. He has done LEGO robotics in middle school for 1 year and participated in both building and coding. Robert plans to go to college after high school and enjoys simply being at school, but definitely robotics. He is a member of the Math team, FBLA, and SciOly. Robert joined FTC 3 year to help new members learn. He hopes to learn and work with the new, growing team.
Samuel
Member
Samuel
Samuel Thomas is a Junior at John Jay High School. He did Robotics last year, but it was an off-season. He does 4 other clubs: Science Olympiad, FBLA, Interact, and Math Team, and he is also in the Math Honor Society. He decided to join Robotics because he wanted to explore the field of robotics and learn leadership skills. He is part of the fundraising team and build team. He wishes to learn actuarial science at a reputable college. He has many hobbies, such as baseball, soccer, and the piano.
Tyler
Builder
Tyler
Tyler Sammer is a 10th grader at JJHS. It is his first year in the Robotics Club. He is a part of the Build Team. On the side, he does Boy Scouts and plays airsoft. Tyler wants to be a Game Designer/Coder so he wants to learn how to code in the future during his time in Robotics. For this year he hopes to learn a lot about building before he starts his future in coding.